Ethan Thornton

Founder & CEO
Mach Industries

Closing a $100-million Series B funding round led by Khosla Ventures and Bedrock Capital, Ethan Thornton is the founder and CEO at Mach Industries. He commands the Huntington Beach-based defense technology enterprise to manufacture vertically integrated autonomous hardware for unmanned warfare. This expertise extends to high-altitude platform development after engineering the Stratos aerial platform and the Viper jet-powered vertical takeoff drone. Leveraging this record of success, Thornton secured a competitive prime selection from the U.S. Army Applications Laboratory to complete initial flight testing for the Strategic Strike vertical takeoff cruise missile. He sustains this momentum by driving rapid multi-site organizational scaling that expanded corporate headcount from 20 to 160 advanced aerospace engineers. This leadership trajectory supports strategic tactical assembly partnerships with Heven Drones to manufacture unmanned aerial systems at his 115,000-square-foot facility.